BIG, BIG Y2K POMES

NOT ME, BUT MINE

There are pictures in my brain,
Memories that are not me,
But they are mine.
A lighted kitchen window
Viewed from the road
Of a redheaded woman
Talking with great animation
On the phone.
Seen by someone driving
With a heart full of soul
Who wasn’t me.
Though mine.
Or the view from the 25^th
Floor of the Days Inn Lakefront,
In Chicago,
That belongs to a rock star
Shakin’ on through
His first success,
Tempted by the fruit
Of fame and money
Who called his mom
On his own dime
Instead of lining his nose.
He was never me,
Though mine.
The tops of clouds over New Orleans
While a tropical depression
Worried the ground below;
Diamonds on velvet through
The Toronto picture window
In the trophy house
Of a man
Who’d lost interest
In his dreams.
The unbroken,
Carpetlike
Yard of a Northern Kentucky
Upper-middle-class wife’s
Debauchery.
I have seen all these things and yet
I have not seen them.
Though not me,
They are mine.

AMERICAN GOTHIC 2K

So, the guy in the new Lexus,
Sitting next to me in traffic —
Who is already exhausted
At 8:30 in the morning —
Doesn’t understand
The Carrara marble foyer,
And the fifty-dollar necktie
Make a slow, enticing gallows.
That slick, late-model hearse
Wasn’t really a solution.
And he still needs that Viagra
To fuck his trophy wife.
Oh, he doubtless thinks he loves her,
When in truth he doesn’t like her.
Bloody hell — he barely knows her.
And there’s no amount of Prozac
That can cover up forever
What he has to someday know:
That the Lexus is the problem
And if he’d just bought a Honda,
He wouldn’t be a train wreck
At 8:30 in the morning,
Sitting next to me in traffic.

WEST STROOP     

The stringy-haired guy 
In the 80s black Caprice,
With the blown-out headliner
And the Jesus-fish decal, 
Who is ferrying around
His elderly mother
In her dayglo printed dress
And her hat
With plastic flowers,
Doesn't know it yet,
But his transmission
Will 
Go,
In three hundred and sixteen
More
Miles.
And there will be no midnight
Beer run, and no
Breakfast trips to Denny's
For either 
Of them
For a while.

GO AWAY, LITTLE GIRL

Goth chicks think they love death.
But not death as the perceived end of their lives — 
Death perceived as the inaccessible, older lover.

To genuinely meditate on the end of one's life is,
I grant, an entirely different circumstance.
And, I also grant, some do precisely that.

Many, however, indulge in a melty crush;
The next step beyond pop singers,
Actors, sports figures and math teachers.

Death is a beautiful man with dark, limpid eyes;
Articulate, and dangerous, and clad all in black,
Who tells them he can solve all their problems.

Death doesn't care if they're beautiful,
Or even if they're smart, or popular, or cool,
Or a little overweight.

They write poems about Death's eyes,
About his voice; about the cool compassion
Death displays that nobody else does.

Unlike the most ill-starred Lolita affair, however,
Nobody learns any lessons from Death.
Nobody gets a next relationship, after Death.

Death is a one-off shot, unlike human infatuation.
Nobody gets to break up with Death,
And Death never rejects a single candidate.

Death can eat little goth chicks.
They only have to accept once.
Death grows sleek on unearned meals.

And the more Death eats,
The more limpid, dark and compelling
He is made, to attract his next lover.

Nice trick, that.

POPLAR LEAVES

Poplar leaves make a big deal about it
From the first moment in spring
That they've grown big enough
To catch the wind.

They rustle, supple in gusty April;
Dance madly before May thunderstorms;
Slap each other slickly when June rains;
Dawdle on the least hot August breeze.

Even near death, in October's fading sighs,
They riffle aridly like subtle applause,
Even as they prepare to fall to the ground
To feed the next generation.

In the winter, however, they rot quietly.

DRINK ME

On any given day
The Alice beyond my
Looking-glass eyes
Stands holding two vials.
Identical but for the
Knowledge of their
Contents.

Alice's arms 
Are tired sometimes.
A flick of the thumb
Opens either vial.
One contains, at least,
The color of up,
If not up itself.
The smell of sunshine
And the heartbeat of good.

The other contains the sound
Of padded yellow vinyl
Doctor's office chairs
And the dark reflection
Off the back of a
Rain-soaked
windowpane.

Most days, she makes it
From sleep to sleep
Arms high.
Some days
She doesn't.

THE OLD COAT

I saw her the other day, she didn't know I was there,
She came out from work, wearing that same old coat.
I always hated that coat.  

I told her many times —
It was like a criticism of me and my ability to provide.  
But she insisted on wearing the beat-up old thing, 
Told me it was functional.
It was warm.  
It ‘served the purpose.'

The Christmas I tried to replace it, 
She said she felt criticized; put on the spot.
She never wore the new coat.
It's still in my closet to this day.
The buttery black leather reminds me,
I miscalculated badly.  Often.

I remember her face, one summer afternoon,
Turned up to the window,
The sun on her forehead; her cheeks.
Her mouth.  
I loved her mouth, among other things.
The expression on her face when the cardinals perched,
Just outside the window,
And the cat sang back.
She had nothing in her hands but a cup of coffee.  
It was like it was money.

I don't understand why she doesn't want for anything,
Even though she doesn't have anything.
And why she won't come back.  
We were together for years.
I worked so hard, put in such long hours,
Went away so many times.  
She said she never wanted it.
How can you live your whole life like you were twenty-two?
How can you never want anything more material,
Ever?

How can you not want?  
Isn't that giving up?
Not wanting anything else.
Isn't that clinical depression?
Isn't that sick?

She's moving through life, moving fast in her old coat,
Her old car, listening to her old music.
Newness makes its mark.  
I appreciate the feel of something nobody else has ever touched.
I'll never understand how she keeps moving,
Uncomplaining, making just enough,
Having just enough, feeling just enough.

I have to have the rush of the new,
The adrenaline of challenge.
It's my life.  
I don't understand her.

FROM AN E-MAIL TO MY EX,
WHO LIKES ROBIN WILLIAMS MOVIES

________

We really don't even rent many movies, anymore.  
I've heard Blockbuster,
And some of the other big chain stores,
Censor movies, 
And anyway,
I like to spend the money locally if I can, 
So it ends up something like this:  

Go to a local video store.  
Walk past fifty copies each of 'Terminator III' 
'Waiting to Exhale,'  and ‘American Pie.'
Go to Blockbuster, 
And not find the silly little British or Canadian 
Art/comedy film you were looking for there, either.

Just endless copies of 'The Full Monty' 
(which I liked, but wouldn't pay to see again, at home) 
And 'Trainspotting' -- 
Then go home and flip channels for four hours.  

We now condense it into this: 

'You want to go rent a movie?'  
'Yeah -- here, why don't you hit me 
In the head 
With a rolled up
magazine for about twenty minutes,  
And then get the TV remote?  
It's the same thing.'

I've derived continually less pleasure from actually 
Going to the cinemas since the time you and I went 
And saw 'Dracula' at 275-East in Milford 
Several years ago, 
And I had about six anxiety attacks 
In the course of the movie,
And remember very little of it.
Except there was one scene 
In which Gary Oldman wore a turquoise top hat 
And John Lennon glasses with amber lenses 

Now, I sit watching movies in the cinemas,
Waiting for the top of my head to come off, 
Or for somebody to start talking,
Somebody's kid to start crying,
Somebody's pager or mobile phone to ring,
All the while gritting my teeth.  

On top of that, Tony's old TV is only a 19" 
But it still works perfectly well, 
And we can always find something better 
To spend the three hundred bucks on 
At any given time.  
And will, doubtless, until the TV leaps 
Off the entertainment center in a death dive, 
Trailing a shower of sparks. 

Meanwhile, we squint from across the room,
And try to find things wrong with the picture, 
So we can justify buying a new set, 
Which we never find.

We're the ultimate anti-consumers, I guess.  
Not because we don't have the money, 
Or don't want to spend it, 
But because we alternate procrastination 
With being so fucking picky 
We don't want anything they have 
When we do go to buy things.  

Not that I was every any different,
As you well know.

But any time either of us says, 
'You know, I could use another pair of jeans,' 
The other one cries 
And looks for a Tylenol 3.

WHEN DAT BONE DONE FELL ...

Dat millennium baby got big fat legs,
Dat millennium baby got big fat legs,
Here he come wit' a hammer in his hands,
Here he come wit' a bag of don' know,
Smilin' like he just ate a thousand years.

Here come his mama, gonna tan his hide,
Here come his mama, gonna tan his hide,
Think he big when the rest of the world,
Don't know nothin' ‘bout no big deal,
Don't know nothin' ‘bout no thousand years.

Dat Jesus baby got a lot to explain,
Dat Moses baby got a lot to explain,
Dat Mohammed baby got a lot to explain,
Dat Buddha baby got a lot to explain,

All dem babies got a lot to explain.

If we're still here in a thousand years,
If we're still here in a thousand years,
All them babies still be kickin' they feet,
An' all they mamas still be tannin' they hide.

If we're still here in a thousand years.